Monday, February 28, 2011

A lawsuit alleged that Fox News CEO Roger Ailes pressured former publisher Judith Regan to lie to federal investigators during their investigation of former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik—and that Regan recorded the conversation, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The charges actually stem from an affidavit filed in a lawsuit against Regan by her lawyers—an affidavit which was only made public because of a court oversight. Regan had made similar allegations in a separate wrongful termination suit she filed against News Corp.--the parent company of both Fox News and Harper Collins, where she was fired in 2006 after a scandal surrounding a book by O.J. Simpson--but the identity of the person she said told her to lie about an affair she'd had with Kerik had not been revealed until now.

According to the Times, Regan alleged that she recorded a telephone call between her and Ailes, where he told her to keep her affair quiet from federal investigators, lest the resultant publicity hurt the presidential bid of Rudy Guiliani, Kerik's close ally. Guiliani is also very close to Ailes--among other things, he officiated at Ailes' wedding.

The Times speculates that the existence of the recording may be one reason that News Corp. settled very quickly with Regan in early 2008, giving her a $10.75 million payout.

The thriller will be known as Shark Knight 3D when it is released internationally, although that title never sat well with the studio or director. Here's what David R. Ellis recently said about the title.

"I hated the original title [Shark Knight 3D], too, so at our weekly production meetings, I made everyone on the crew come up with names - Chums, Fins, Terror on the Lake - but they all seemed kind of cheesy. And so until I hear a better name, I like what we've got right now: Untitled 3D Shark Thriller. The title says everything you need to know: 'We've got sharks.' 'It's in 3D.' and, 'It's a thriller."

"Acclaimed cocktail expert and historian David Wondrich takes readers on a raucous guided tour of all things punch-a tour that starts with some very lonely British sailors and swells to include a cast of lords and ladies, admirals, kings, presidents, poets, pirates, novelists, spies, and other inimitable characters. And of course, authentic recipes appear throughout, with notes for the modern punch-maker."

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Product Description: An unforgettable portrait of the emerging world's entrepreneurial dynamos Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky is the story about that top 1% of people who do more to change their worlds through greed and ambition than politicians, NGOs and nonprofits ever can. This new breed of self-starter is taking local turmoil and turning it into opportunities, making millions, creating thousands of jobs and changing the face of modern entrepreneurship at the same time. To tell this story, Lacy spent forty weeks traveling through Asia, South America and Africa hunting down the most impressive up-and-comers the developed world has never heard of....yet. The individuals profiled in Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky are distinct products of their own cultures, yet they share that same unmistakable cocktail of delusion, ambition, and brilliance that drove Bill Gates, Fred Smith, Donald Trump, and every other iconic American entrepreneur of the last few decades.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2010: Lauren Redniss’s brilliant biography-in-collage is an astounding portrait of Marie and Pierre Curie, the husband-and-wife team who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Broken into seven chapters (introduced with scientific terms that hint at the stories to come), Radioactive fuses quotes from the scientists themselves with ones from the Curies’ own granddaughter, engineering and weapons experts, and even atomic bomb survivors that form a most interesting and informative narrative. Redniss’s styling doesn’t end with the way she tells the story: Radioactive is as visually stunning as it is factually rich. She jumps from black-and-white sketches to vibrantly colored depictions of the young couple’s courtship, collaborations... --Jessica Schein

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

"Nigerian immigrant Julius, a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City, has recently broken up with his girlfriend and spends most of his time dreamily walking around Manhattan. The majority of Open City centers on Julius’ inner thoughts as he rambles throughout the city, painting scenes of both what occurs around him and past events that he can’t help but dwell on. For reasons not altogether clear, Julius’ walks turn into worldwide travel, and he flies first to Europe, where he has an unplanned one-night stand and makes some interesting friends, then to Nigeria, and finally back to New York City. Along the way, he meets many people and often has long discussions with them about philosophy and politics. Brought up in a military school, he seems to welcome these conversations. Upon returning to New York, he meets a young Nigerian woman who profoundly changes the way he sees himself. Readers who enjoy stream-of-consciousness narratives and fiction infused with politics will find this unique and pensive book a charming read."

New York magazine's Fall 2010 Home Design issue featured the Williamsburg garage that former Blue's Clues star Steve Burns (he was the human) converted into a pretty spectacular house, complete with a sodded interior courtyard. Well, you might have noticed that there's been a bit of snow this winter, and New York's Wendy Goodman has a Burns followup: Dude built an igloo in his courtyard. Here's how he'd list it: “Charming alcove studio, steps from L train. Cutting-edge green construction, locally sourced material, a MUST SEE! $1,100/month." Check out the cozy interior. There's wi-fi!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Upstate Rep. Christopher Lee abruptly quit his job yesterday after he was exposed trolling for an extramarital tryst on Craigslist -- using his real name and Gmail account.

In a mind-boggling blunder, the Buffalo-area Republican, who is married with a young son, responded to an ad in Craigslist's "women seeking men" section in DC. He claimed to be a "divorced" "lobbyist" and a "fit fun classy guy."

As proof, Lee sent along a cheesy photo of himself, flexing his muscles and posing shirtless in front of a mirror.

Lee's cover was blown when his would-be conquest did an Internet search, discovered he was lying, and sent the treasure trove of their correspondence to Gawker.com, which yesterday posted it online. Lee's staffers -- who initially suggested the lawmaker's e-mail had been hacked -- dodged media queries before announcing the resignation.

"I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents," Lee said in the statement, which did not address the Craigslist bProxy-Connection: keep-aliveCache-Control: max-age=0

uhaha. He later told Fox News Channel, "I gotta work this out with my wife."

Friday, February 11, 2011

LONDON — It was a classic tabloid scoop: a young woman’s account of a two-year affair with the actor Ralph Fiennes, spiced up with racy details of what he liked to do and how he liked to do it.

Three newspapers — The Sunday Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and News of the World — carried their versions of the tale on Feb. 5, 2006.

The first two papers obtained the story via the normal tabloid route, paying the woman, Cornelia Crisan, £35,000 to tell all.

But it appears that News of the World, furious at the prospect of being outmaneuvered, took a sneakier approach: It illegally hacked into the voice mail messages of Ms. Crisan’s press agent, Nicola Phillips, and stole the story, according to allegations in a new lawsuit.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Geo-location has come to this: After three weeks in review, Wheretheladies.at, a web app that aggregates Foursquare checkins by the female gender, is now available on the iPhone. The concept OF A BIG COMPASS POINTING YOU IN THE DIRECTION OF LADIES is so unprecedented that Apple actually called co-founder Jeff Hodsdon on his cellphone to ask about the app during the review process.

Co-founded by Path’s Danny Trinh and Hodsdon, Wheretheladies.at the iPhone app ranks nearby locations by the number of females who have checked in (using a dictionary crawl and permutation logic when gender isn’t available) as well as helpfully points you in the direction of the critical mass of ladies in your vicinity.

The 'What's My Name' singer stepped out in Hollywood last night sporting a larger-than-life crimson wig, similar to the red curls she rocked at November's American Music Awards.

The style chameleon, whose edgy style has inspired countless imitators, first made hair headlines when she chopped off her long locks in favor of a face-framing crop in 2008.

The singer's penchant for tight clothes and tattoos has turned the heads of not only fashion insiders, but her fair share of celebrity admirers as well. Celebrity stylist Philip Bloch named Rihanna a top style star of 2010, saying, "Rihanna just brings you the fashion. She brings you designers. She brings you pink hair."

From Wikipedia: Justified is an American television drama series created by Graham Yost based on the fictional character Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshal, from Elmore Leonard's novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story "Fire in the Hole". The series is set in the city of Lexington, Kentucky and the hill country of Eastern Kentucky, specifically in and around Harlan. Timothy Olyphant stars as the tough, sexy, southern-bred but soft-spoken federal lawman, enforcing his own brand of, at times, extralegal justice.

Known as Google Art Project, the initiative will give users remote access to the priceless paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts from 17 of the world's most famous museums, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, London's National Gallery and Tate Britain, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and others.

In a blog post announcing the effort, Amit Sood, head of the Google Art Project, explained that users will have initial access to at least 1,000 works from the 17 museums, including one from each institution that will be presented in high-resolution using "'gigapixel' photo-capturing technology."

The project is based, in part, Sood said, on Google's Street View technology.

Google didn't do this project on its own. Rather, it partnered with a company called Schematic, which helped integrate many of the technologies that together form Google Art Project, and which took on a lot of the heavy lifting in dealing with the various museums.

Over the past twenty years, New York-based sculptor Charles LeDray (b. 1960, Seattle) has created a highly distinctive and powerful body of work using such materials as sewn cloth, carved human bone, and glazed ceramics. This major survey, which includes works from the 1980s to the present, celebrates both the artist’s virtuosity with materials and his uncanny manipulation of scale to create seemingly familiar objects that engage the collective memory. His techniques of sewing, carving bone, and throwing clay pots find precedents in the traditions of folk art and visionary art, yet rise to a level of unprecedented virtuosity and artistic invention. The exhibition is curated by Randi Hopkins for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Its Whitney installation will be overseen by curator Carter Foster.

A lawsuit filed against the co-op board of the famous Dakota apartment building claims racial discrimination against minority celebrities identified in the press as singer Roberta Flack and Antonio Banderas.

The suit was filed by former board president Alphonse Fletcher Jr., a black Wall Street investor who wasn’t allowed to buy an adjacent unit for $5.7 million to combine with his present 2,600-square-foot apartment, according to the New York Times and Reuters.

The suit says board members turned down a Hispanic applicant after joking he wanted the first-floor unit so he could more easily buy drugs on the street.

According to the Times, the “timing and circumstances” suggest the applicant was Antonio Banderas.

The Dakota issued a statement calling the allegations untrue and “outrageous” and saying Fletcher’s application was denied based on financial considerations.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

American Apparel is on the other side of the lawsuit for once, claiming that a Long Island nail polish maker needs to pony up $5 million! (That's one way to get out of debt.) According to the NY Post, the Forsythe Cosmetic Group "ruined the launch of its nail polish line by using defective bottles that began 'exploding' almost immediately after going on sale." Sound fun! Except no one saw the potential in polish-splattered deep v-necks, and there may actually be hazardous materials in the polish. Now the cosmetic group is being sued for fraud, product liability, and breach of contract. Forsyth says this is all "a suspense-novel-worthy chain of melodramatic alleged events."

To be beef, or not to be beef, that is the question in a lawsuit against Taco Bell for what one Alabama law firm claims is the company's dubious pronouncements of ground beef. The suit says the fast food purveyors are misleading customers by advertising its ground beef offerings as such.

Terrible puns aside, the case Beasley Allen of Montgomery, Ala. brings up is a pretty interesting one, as reported by WTOL in Toledo. Beasley says that what Taco Bells calls "ground beef" does not meet the USDA's definition of beef — "flesh of cattle" — and should instead be dubbed "taco meat filling."

As the USDA definition in the lawsuit says, to be called "ground beef," the product must "consist of chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat, and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders."

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Thom Browne sees American men as strangers in a strange land. Last season, he projected them into space. Today, he spirited them back to the eighteenth century, with a show that took founding father Thomas Jefferson's sojourn in Paris as its starting point. In the Salon Impériale of the Westin hotel, Browne staged a sit-down dinner for 42 painted, peruked fops (the wigs were actually an Aran knit snood), who picked at a dieter's plate of sweet corn and peas while huge turkeys steamed invitingly on the table in front of them. Every so often, the men would arise as one and promenade around the dinner table in a game of musical chairs in a motion slow enough to suggest they might be plagued by gout, a favorite affliction of the eighteenth century.

Browne's seriousness of purpose is indisputable. He claimed the show took a solid six months of planning. At the same time, when challenged about how much of his presentation was designed to bring a smile to his audience's face, he conceded that the full 20 minutes' running time had a tongue-in-cheek element. Just as well. There was such a stately lunacy to the whole affair that, coupled with Browne's idiosyncratic take on aristocratic Americana, we could have been watching a production of Marat/Sade staged by Ralph Lauren.

"The acclaimed author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty: the rise of the girlie-girl, she warns, is not that innocent.

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source—the source—of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?

Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a must-read for anyone who cares about girls, and for parents helping their daughters navigate the rocky road to adulthood."